GMB Cardiff 1 Branch

GMB is a UK general trade union and one of the founder members of the Labour party, representing over six hundred thousand British workers.

GMB began life in 1889 as the Gas Workers and General Union. A long and colourful history of union relationships and mergers led to the creation of GMB as it is today in 1982. GMB’s Cardiff 1 County Council Branch is one of three hundred branches working to improve working conditions and quality of life for their members. Being a general union means that GMB members belong to many industries. Their membership is particularly strong among manual workers in local government, including schools, health care and the ambulance service, security, retail, distribution, and the utilities.

Fun fact: “GMB” stands for “General, Municipal and Boilermakers” – it’s short for the “General, Municipal, Boilermakers and Allied Trade Union”. We can see why they shortened it to GMB.

Our Challenge

GMB Cardiff 1 County Council Branch is the office that represents GMB’s members who work for Cardiff County Council. They came to us with a brief for a website to promote the benefits of their membership and publicise their activities in and around Cardiff.

As a union, GMB have a lot of information to share with their members, from local events to national news. It was crucial for them to have a members-only section of the site, where GMB members could log in to view confidential information and discuss local issues and concerns. They also wanted a Youth Zone, where they could educate young workers about services provided by GMB, membership, and young peoples’ employment rights.

Our Solution

GMB, as a union, need to share information quickly and easily. We built a responsive website to enable members to access the site on mobile devices, and catch the latest news wherever they are. We ensured that the items on the homepage combined local-interest articles with national union news.

GMB have a multi-channel approach to communicating with their members. We reflected this inclusiveness in their homepage, where we have integrated the GMB team’s Twitter updates with the news page, and given the option for the news to be received as an RSS feed.

The members’ zone is password-protected, so that the private concerns and opinions of GMB staff and union members stay confidential.